Besides dragons, Peter Dinklage, violence, and abundant sex, one of the best things about Game of Thrones is the sheer epicness and depth of its world. Unfortunately, that’s a blessing and a curse for the show’s producers as they try to pay adequate attention to each of the show’s many main characters while pleasing the fans and servicing the story. Sometimes, though, there just isn’t enough material to go around.
As was revealed by Kristian Nairn, who plays Hodor and the dopest records in his second career as a DJ, both his character and Yoda backpack/Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) won’t appear in the upcoming season of Game of Thrones. But now series producer and co-showrunner David Benioff is explaining why the decision was made to hide Bran and Hodor from us for such a long period.
“Ideally that wouldn’t have gotten out and it’s unfortunate it did,” Benioff said. “The fact is, even though we’re making changes to the books and adapting as necessary, we’re trying to keep the various storylines the same as the books and trying to keep them roughly [chronologically] parallel. And last year we caught up to the end of Bran’s storyline [in George R.R. Martin’s most recent A Song of Ice and Fire novel, A Dance with Dragons]. So if we pushed him forward this season, then he’s way ahead of where the other characters are.”
That seems reasonable, but couldn’t they slip in at least one training montage with a bit of Kenny Loggins’ “Meet Me Halfway” playing in the background?
“It made sense to stop where we did,” Benioff said. “He’s now entering a training period which is going to take quite some time, much of which isn’t particularly cinematic. So rather than being stuck in a cave for a year, we figured it would be interesting to leave him out for a little bit, so when you see him again…” Benioff didn’t want to reveal much more beyond that.
To be blisteringly honest, I’m sort of happy that the continuining adventures of Hodor and Bran aren’t continuing through this next season. I understand why they had to pay so much attention to their journey last season, but the Bran moments were some of the season’s weakest, in my opinion. If Benioff doesn’t want to force feed us any more until the character is a vital part of the story again, that is fine by me.
Source: EW